Plague of the Daleks audio

Yeah. No. Mark Morris says some things in his interview that make me wonder about his writing ability and plotting ability. There's nothing wrong iwth his plodding ability though. Sorry, the story starts off randomly boring and acts like a bit of the first ep of ANDROID INVASION (never a good starting off point) mixed with the non boring bits of the first part of this trilogy and if you're borrowing from the first bit of your three part story, that does'nt bode well. Things start to get more exciting once an alien and a grouchy woman and her nice husband arrive but then dip toward disgusting horror via NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD which this most resembles and THE EVIL DEAD only without Ash. Then the Daleks show up so we get a bit of PLANET OF THE DALEKS and DEATH TO THE DALEKS mixed with the plague stuff and the Doc's bloodstream is infected via THE INVISIBLE ENEMY. Talk about a rip off. I get the feeling that these DW AUDIOS are being mass produced and factory line fashioned...not a good way to do DW. Look at the current situation in TV's DW...dough, better not. Bad example. No, really, RTD didn't do 39 eps a season but a quick 13. Perhaps they are running out of ideas.

On the plus side, Sarah Sutton and Peter Davison have Nyssa and the Doctor down pat: only they each shuld be playing the other's character. No just kidding. They really ARE Nyssa and the Doctor now. THey've played them so often now they have to have it right and they do. Alone, together, or with other characters they just have the two down pat and really know what they are doing and how to play each and every scene they are in. Davison has some rather good lines, "Whatsamatter, fog in your throat?" and many many others. His Doctor is finally very very enjoyable and daring and reckless without NOT being the Doctor he was in the show, a dangerous line he walks but he does so brilliantly in this. Sarah is equally good. They had the oppurtunity and respect to be the Doc and Nyssa, the same respect that was not afforded Matthew Waterhouse even though Big Finish could have done this with the dreadful BOY TIME FORGOT and a slap in the face wtih Thomas Brewster who couuld easily be seen as Adric lite.

The guest cast are well done and I suppose it is a nod to Terry Nation that almost all of them...no, all of them, seem to DIE horribly in true BLAKE'S 7 fashion, the nice ones and the annoying ones and the evil ones and the brainwashed ones. Some of the ending is tense and exciting but some of it seems like DW Dalek clips from Davison stories as well.

The whole thing leaves a sad bad taste in the mouth to be honest and when Nysssa in the finale says they will go off to somewhere that has happier times...it makes me wonder where in the DW universe that will be...it's quickly becoming a depressive state again in DW and makes me wonder why I watch/listen to something that is morbid and dealing in constant death and destruction with almost no redeeming value...overall the audio is poor.

The Stockbridge comics: I must admit to them having a few great settings and some great characters like Max and Sir Justin and others and when I read them I loved them and thought them innovative and interesting. Seeing them now, I wonder what I saw in them. THey're very illusionary and not so subtle at the same time. Frankly they are boring nowadays. Setting a three part in them is risky business at best and for the first two stories well done. Perhaps it was one story too many and this one really puts a real ZINGER on the whole thing by the way it ends and the way it ends Stockbridge...still...perhaps it is worth thinking about but not for long...it makes the entire time the Doc stayed in Stockbridge a real downer...and I find THAT in DW is not very good.

Oh and everybody dies like in HORROR OF FANG ROCK and we get the DOc reciting poetry like HORROR OF FANG ROCK.